Case report: Death associated with stroke following intracarotid amobarbital testing.

OBJECTIVE

One previous accidental death during intracarotid amobarbital testing (IAT) associated with cerebral angiography (CA) has been reported in the literature. The objectives of this article are to briefly review morbidity and mortality risks for patients undergoing diagnostic CA and to describe a case with a fatal outcome.

METHOD: The case of a 38-year-old man who had a right middle cerebral artery stroke while undergoing IAT is described. The patient was not high risk by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services criteria or invasive procedures; neither did he have risk factors for embolic stroke.

CONCLUSIONS

A problem noted is that IAT procedures vary from center to center and that IAT may increase the risk for individual patients because of differences between IAT and other CA interventions.